A Primary Flight Display is a computer-generated aircraft display that provides a flight crew with real-time visual representations of the operational states of their aircraft during flight. For example, a Primary Flight Display may display depictions of important flight instrumentation (e.g., altitude, attitude, heading, airspeed, and vertical speed indicators) and primary engine instrument indicators in a single, readily interpretable display. Some Primary Flight Displays also are adapted to display a forward-looking, synthetic view of the aircraft's external environment. The synthetic view may include depictions of terrain, runway indicators, and obstacle indicators, among other things. These synthetic depictions and indicators may be generated based on navigational data and terrain data, for example, which is stored in an on-board database. By displaying a synthetic view of the aircraft's external environment on the Primary Flight Display, the flight crew's situational awareness may be enhanced, and overall flight safety may be improved.
Although the synthetic imagery has its advantages, such imagery can not, by its nature, provide a completely accurate picture of the external environment. For example, although the synthetic image may include a runway indicator superimposed on a synthetic depiction of terrain, such a view would not provide the flight crew with information regarding potential obstacles on the runway or terrain features that are not represented in the terrain database. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide systems and methods with enhanced display of the external environment of an aircraft. Other desirable features and characteristics of the embodiments will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the inventive subject matter and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the inventive subject matter.